Universal 

Suffrage 




Does the experience of this Republic up to the 
close of the nineteenth century justify uni¬ 
versal manhood suffrage, or should the elective 
franchise be limited by educational, property, 
or other qualification? 


ADDRESS OF 

Wm. aI 1 MacCORKLE, 

n 

Late Governor of West Virginia, 

BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY CLUB, 
NEW YORK CITY, 

January 15, 1901. 


CINCINNATI: 

THE ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY, 
1901. 






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“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good ” 


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ADDRESS. 


Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : De 
Tocqueville, the aristocratic delineator of American 
Democracy, narrates that in his travels into the 
primeval America he arrived upon the shores of a 
crystal lake, embosomed in untouched forests ; that in 
the midst of the lake was a beautiful islet, shaded to 
the banks with trees old as the daylight of time. He 
crossed over to the island and was delighted with the 
richness of the soil and the exuberance of growth of 
tree and flower, and was awed by the silence and 
beauty and solitude of the scene. However, amidst 
the majesty of this morning of nature, he found upon 
the island some remains of man. Upon careful in¬ 
spection he discovered, amidst the glory of nature, 
where a European had made his home. But how 
changed! The logs of the cabin had fallen to the 
ground and had sprouted anew, and over their remains 
had grown the flower and the tree. The scattered 
stones of the hearth lay under the fallen chimney and 
were blackened with the old fire, and were over¬ 
scattered with the thin ashes of another day. He stood 
in silent admiration of the glories of nature and the 
littleness of man, and as he left the solitude he ex¬ 
claimed with melancholy, “Are the ruins, then, 
already here?” 

So, Mr. President, when I received from your 
able and courteous secretary the formulation of the 
question for discussion, which betokens within itself 

3 



4 — 


that, whilst we are in the very glory of the dawn of 
our day, the sacred temple of our hopes and love was 
broken, I was led to exclaim with the old philosopher, 
“Are the ruins, then, already here?” 

In my poor way, I will this evening examine the 
sacred edifice, and we will together touch its walls 
and attempt to ascertain whether foundation and 
lintel and jam and turret stand true and plumb as 
when they left the hands of the master builders; 
for, as Mr. Lowell relates, when Guizot once asked 
“How long I thought the Republic would last?” “I 
replied,” said he, “so long as the ideas of the men 
who founded it continue dominant.” Do we not all 
assent to his reply? 

The formulation of the subject for investigation, 
“Does the experience of this Republic up to the close 
of the nineteenth century justify universal manhood 
suffrage, or should the elective franchise be limited by 
educational, property, or other qualification,” carries 
in it the most important and vital questions of our 
civil life. 

The question is of to-day, and I will not take 
precious time to present the rubbish of the history of 
the franchise. A word, however, is necessary that 
we may intelligently grasp the conditions of the early 
days of the Republic and understand their influence 
upon the present. Being a Virginian, I will be excused 
by the indulgent audience for having taken Virginia 
as a general type showing the evolution of the present 
franchise condition. 

The status in Virginia explains why the Fathers, 
when they annunciated the great salient principles of 
free government, a radical departure in the lines of 
government, did not also announce manhood suffrage, 
the present essence of democracy. 



— 5 — 


Necessarily, when the great truths of representa¬ 
tive government were proclaimed by the Fathers, they 
could not at once disembarrass themselves from all of 
the accompaniments of government as theretofore ex¬ 
perienced by them. It is generally understood that 
the limitation of suffrage to freeholders, which prac¬ 
tically made an aristocratic government, and the 
equal representation of the counties, which was sec¬ 
tional, were voluntarily adopted by the people of Vir¬ 
ginia. Such was not the case. This limitation of 
suffrage to freeholders was the result of the commands 
of the King of England, and these commands were 
enforced by the bayonets of two regiments of his 
soldiers, and it was without any act of assembly. 
Thus, at the time of the Revolution, for more than a 
century freehold government had been the practical 
law of the people. Yet it was contrary to the salient 
principles of the peoples’ free government. The ques¬ 
tion then naturally arises, why was this system con¬ 
tinued after the people had substituted their own in 
place of the rule of the King of England? This is 
frequently asked by those who look toward the reim¬ 
position of suffrage limitation. 

In Virginia when the convention of 1776 met and 
adopted its Declaration of Rights : 

That all men are by nature, equal, free and in¬ 
dependent ; 

That all power is vested in, and consequently de¬ 
rived from, the people ; 

That government is and ought to be instituted 
for the common benefit, protection and security of the 
people; and 

That a majority of the people hath an indubit¬ 
able, inalienable and indefeasible right to act for the 
public weal; 


— 6 — 


there was then in the condition of affairs a practical 
necessity for the continuation of the anomaly of free¬ 
hold suffrage. The convention, composed of some 
of the greatest and wisest of the Fathers of the Re¬ 
public, was sitting within sight of the bayonets of the 
King of Great Britain, and within sound of his can¬ 
non. They had inaugurated the war in which every 
right of life and property was imperiled. The free¬ 
holders were a great and powerful body upon whom 
was the chief reliance for defense against the tyranny 
of England, and hence they adopted the proposition 
that the right of suffrage “shall remain as at present 
exercised.” There was no time to change and pull 
down and build up. It was the time to fight. The 
Fathers thoroughly understood the controvention of 
the principles announced by them and as set out by 
their theory of government. Mr. Jefferson earnestly 
insisted that the people, “So soon as leisure should be 
afforded them for entrenching within good form the 
rights for which they had bled,” should do so. This 
demand for equal exercise of suffrage never after¬ 
wards was at rest. Alike in the North as in Virginia 
the demand was unceasing on the part of the plain 
people that they should have a part in the manage¬ 
ment as they had in the perils of the government. 
This culminated in Virginia in the memorial of 1829 
presented to the convention by John Marshall, in 
which the following pregnant words occur : 

“If we are sincerely republican, we must give our 
confidence to the principles we profess. We have been 
taught by our fathers that all power is vested in, and 
derived from, the people; not the freeholders; that 
the majority of the community, in whom abides the 
physical force, have also the political right of creating 
and remoulding at will, their civil institutions. Nor 




can this right be anywhere more safely deposited. 
The generality of mankind, doubtless, desire to become 
owners of property ; left free to reap the fruits of their 
labors, they will seek to acquire it honestly. It can 
never be their interest to overburden, or render pre¬ 
carious, what they themselves desire to enjoy in peace. 
But should they ever prove as base as the argument 
supposes, force alone ; arms, not votes, could effect 
their designs ; and when that shall be attempted, what 
virtue is there in Constitutional restrictions, in mere 
wax and paper, to withstand it? To deny to the great 
body of the people all share in the government; on 
suspicion that they may deprive others of their prop¬ 
erty, to rob them in advance of their rights ; to look 
to a privileged order as the fountain and depositary of 
all power; is to depart from the fundamental max¬ 
ims, to destroy the chief beauty, the characteristic 
feature, indeed, of Republican Government.” 

In 1849, these words became true in Virginia as 
well in practice as in theory. 

And generally throughout the Republic at this 
period there rested the strife between the mighty 
spirits of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, 
the one living in latter days in the stately steppings 
of Daniel Webster, and the other, passing strange for 
a Virginian to say, reincarnated in the tall form and 
furrowed brow and catholic spirit of Abraham Lincoln. 

What has been the effect of universal suffrage 
upon the great living principles of our government? 
Whither has been the trend, upward or downward? 
Has it strengthened or pauperized the fundamental 
principles which we have been taught were the abiding 
glory of free government? How has it affected the re¬ 
lation of the citizen to the local government, to the 
town, to the city, to the State and the Union; the re- 


— 8 — 


lation between the State and the National Government; 
and the relation between the classes composing this 
free government? These questions, while allowing no 
touch of poetry or opportunity for the play of fancy, 
are vital, and their general principles alone can be 
here considered. 

How has universal suffrage affected the principle of 
local self-government, for as one of the great living heads 
of my profession, Judge Dillon, well says, “and local 
self-government, it cannot be too often enforced, is the 
true and only solid basis of our free institutions?” 

This is the first relation of the citizen to gov¬ 
ernment, and it is the fundamental idea of our govern¬ 
mental life because it affects the immediate daily life of 
the citizen. This primary exercise of the rights of cit¬ 
izenship is so important that I will be pardoned for a 
little elementary discussion, for a free people should 
never become tired of contemplating the first steps 
of free institutions. 

The borough-mote in Old England preserved and 
cultured the vital spark of Teutonic liberty. The bor¬ 
ough bell was the living resonant signal as far as its 
piercing clang could reach, warning fierce baron and 
greedy churchman and grasping king that the English¬ 
man held to his local rights, even if these rights re¬ 
quired his blood. 

This is the principle which has distinguished Old 
England from the other nations of the world, her 
resolute clinging to the primal principles of her gov¬ 
ernment. In the borough alone was the right of free 
speech in open meeting. Here alone in all of the 
Kingdom was the right of self-government, and above 
all, here was the right of trial by one’s peers. “Had 
Rebel been a dweller within the borough,” said the 
Burgesses, “he would have gotten his acquittal as our 


—■9 — 


liberty is.” Under Angevin and Saxon the local 
power of self-government was resolutely defended. 
Sometimes it was paid for in money, more often in 
blood; but at whatever price, it was gotten, despite 
conflict, bloody though it may have been, or price 
however high. Then as now the borough was the 
school-house of liberty. Here were discussed, and 
often-times fiercely discussed, the first beginnings and 
principles of free government; for the settlement of 
these principles affected the immediate welfare of the 
community, and frequently the personal liberty of its 
inhabitants. “Let the City of London have all its old 
liberties and its free customs as well by land as water, 
besides this I will and grant, that all other cities, 
boroughs and towns and ports have all of their liber¬ 
ties and free customs,” rang the clarion note of the 
Great Charter. “They have given me four and 
twenty over kings,” exclaimed John Lackland, as he 
gnashed his teeth in his anguish, but as usual he was 
mistaken in the people, for instead of twenty-four over 
kings, he had placed for all time the written guaran¬ 
tees of local government, the very germ of liberty, in 
the hands of all of his people, 

More than five hundred years afterwards, in a 
new country, the American Revolution broke out, says 
De Tocqueville, and the doctrine of the sovereignty 
of the people grew out of the township and took pos¬ 
session of the state. 

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most 
valuable laws, suspending our own Legislatures, ran 
the indignant protest of the Declaration of Inde¬ 
pendence. 

Here, then, for the first time, voluntarily, in the 
history of government, was there incorporated in 
the initiative life of a State, the full, free and un- 


— 10 — 


qualified consent of the law-making power to the prin¬ 
ciple of local self-government. We have changed the 
borough and the town to the magisterial and school 
district, the town, the village and the city, but have 
only transferred to our citizens the doctrine as well as 
the traditions of the grandest figure in the history of 
free government, the English borough-man. Sir, it 
seems to me that if I could make the stricken marble 
glow with living life, it would not speak in the image 
of stern Puritan or belted Virginian Cavalier, as 
typical of our political being, great though their les¬ 
sons have been; but rather would I create as the 
chiefest figure of our civil life the English borough- 
man, holding in his strong and resolute hands, against 
all comers, the right of free speech, of free local gov¬ 
ernment and the right of trial by jury. 

How, then, under the exercise of universal suf¬ 
frage do we stand to-day in the evolution of local po¬ 
litical government? The insistent demand of the 
citizen, following the English tradition, is for the free 
control of local matters by the governing power. In 
these local matters, concerning the local interests of 
township, district or county, as the years roll on, the 
demand is becoming more potent within their re¬ 
spective limitations that the local government must be 
uninterfered with and uncontrolled. Local self-gov¬ 
ernment was never so potent in the history of civil 
government as it is to-day. In education, police and 
fiscal affairs its principles have manifestly broadened 
and strengthened since the advent of universal suf¬ 
frage. In every state, we see the citizen strengthen¬ 
ing his local government by careful legislative enact¬ 
ment controlling the management of his local business. 
Universal suffrage has peculiarly intensified the desire 
for, and benefit of, local self-government, for the ob- 


—11 — 


vious reason that the local government deals not with 
the few great questions, but rather with the every-day 
small affairs of life in which the every-day small people, 
unlearned and learned,whether owning property or not, 
are directly interested. This growth of the desire for 
local self-government is well illustrated by the increas¬ 
ing legislation in all of the states, providing for the elec¬ 
tion of district and township officers rather than their 
appointment by a central body such as the County Court. 
This principle has vindicated the great and persistent 
contention of our English ancestry by its history in 
our Union, for local self-government, under universal 
suffrage, has increased its efficiency in promoting pub¬ 
lic good by decreasing taxation, increasing the educa¬ 
tional facilities and taking direct charge of and im¬ 
proving the police and fiscal affairs. Here do we be¬ 
hold the action of the people directly upon public af¬ 
fairs, untrammeled by political thought and uninter¬ 
fered with by the demand of party loyalty. Then, Sir, 
we believe that in this important feature we see one of 
the peculiar triumphs of our present franchise system, 
for in every state, on the prairie and in the mountain, in 
agricultural as well as in commercial and manufactur¬ 
ing communities, we behold the extending, by careful 
enactment under universal suffrage, of the local self- 
governing institutions, which called from Thomas Jef¬ 
ferson the expression, “Those wards, called townships 
in England, are the vital principles of their govern¬ 
ments, and have proved themselves the wisest inven¬ 
tion ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect ex¬ 
ercise of self-government and for the preservation of 
liberty.” 

Let us briefly consider the citizen in his relation 
to a larger and wider sweep of local self-government 
than that of the borough, county or town. The Amer- 


— 12 — 


ican city has given to universal suffrage its severest 
trial. Here has certainly been presented the hardest 
conditions attending any exercise of universal suff¬ 
rage. Let us for a moment discuss the conditions 
presented to the franchise by the American city. 
They are unique in the whole history of civil govern¬ 
ment. In the first place, those who exercise the fran¬ 
chise in most great cities are largely foreign, either by 
birth or immediate lineage. They have had no expe¬ 
rience whatever in the art of government, and in 
most instances they belonged to the governed class. 
The American city is growing wondrously in wealth, 
size and power, and its streets, parks, schools, hos¬ 
pitals and all public institutions and their administra¬ 
tion are not the results of centuries of civic evolution, 
as is the case in Europe. They are urgently demand¬ 
ed, at once, and on a colossal scale, and must be 
administered with no guiding precedent. They are 
created practically out of the ground. They can not, 
as in Europe, be added to here, or patched there, and 
the fault of this century corrected in the next. Their 
evolution from town to city can not run along with 
the evolution of the people from barbarism to civiliza¬ 
tion, and thus have relations which gradually adjust 
themselves to abiding and final conditions. They 
must spring into life full panoplied for the needs of a 
vastly growing and exacting population. 

“It is not strange that the people educating and 
experimenting on city government, for which there is 
absolutely no precedent, under conditions of excep¬ 
tional difficulty, should have to stumble toward cor¬ 
rect and successful methods through experience, which 
may be both costly and distressing,” says a great au¬ 
thority. Thus the city has a burden of educating the 
governing population whose idea of government is 


13 — 


entirely low, and, concurrently, the city must take 
care of its material growth and carry on all of the 
practical details of government. This growth in its 
haste has produced extra cost in the creation and exer¬ 
cise of municipal institutions, and has naturally 
afforded unexampled opportunity for municipal crime. 
Notwithstanding these conditions, the spirit of our 
free institutions has created in the American city a 
marvel of efficient local government, and has raised it, 
in practically one lifetime, to the height of commer¬ 
cial glory and to unapproachable civil magnificence. 
“Looked at in this light,” says the same authority, 
“the moral would seem to be, not so much that the 
American cities are justly criticizable, but that results 
so great have been achieved in so short a time.” 

Considering this unique condition of municipal 
population and growth, the cities of this country, as 
a rule, under the influence of universal suffrage, are 
well governed. It is true, in many instances, we 
have the Boss, and the Ring Rule, and, as compared 
with the result, small deficiencies in effective govern¬ 
ment. But should we not consider the ultimate result 
of our system of general suffrage in the city? Broadway 
may not always be well swept, but our franchise sys¬ 
tem embracing all the people has made it the great¬ 
est street in the world. This great city, oftentimes, 
may have ineffective management of its politics and 
finances, but its great harbor is crowded with the 
ships of all the nations, and the world bows to its un¬ 
approachable civil grandeur. Again, it has been fre¬ 
quently made the illustration of bad civil government 
under the rule of the people endowed with the uni¬ 
versal franchise, but has not this universal franchise 
created the greatest city on this continent? We hear 
of much vice in the city, but I challenge a comparison 


— 14 — 


of New York City with London or Paris. Do we suf¬ 
ficiently consider ultimate results when we are dis¬ 
cussing the political management of civil government, 
both city and state? Beyond question, there has been 
municipal crime, but whenever it has been ascertained 
public sentiment has demanded, and in most instances 
effected, the punishment of the criminal. When we 
speak of municipal crime, does it compare, in any¬ 
wise, with the scandals and the crime arising from 
the opening and improving of the new Paris? Is it 
to be mentioned with the municipal crimes of Lon¬ 
don twenty years ago after its thousand years of ex¬ 
istence? Are not the results of popular control to be 
commended somewhat when you have the best sys¬ 
tem of public schools, of charity and correction, of 
fire protection, of parks and streets in the known 
world? 

It is true, that the ideal of government of a por¬ 
tion of the population of the city is low, but wmuld it 
not be fraught with infinite evil to keep it at that level 
by withholding the franchise from a large part of the 
population? Without argument, what effect upon 
the city would the vast foreign element of this city 
have if debarred from the great social and educational 
benefit derived from the exercise of the franchise? 
Which is worse in a free government, a badly swept 
street, or thousands of discontented people walking 
the clean one? Surely, in a popular government, 
what cause of discontent could be so potent as the de¬ 
barring from the franchise? As a general rule, there 
has been crime and mismanagement in the American 
cities, yet under the exercise of the universal franchise 
the American city has steadily grown and is growing 
better. The elections are fairer, the schools infinitely 
better, the streets are cleaner, the finances more hon- 


— 15 — 


estly administered than they were ten years ago, and I 
appeal to your own experience to know if every general 
condition of municipal government is not improving 
under the practical application of the present system 
of suffrage. The cities of smaller size are practically 
well governed, and in almost every state in the Union 
the laws governing the cities and the application of 
them, are vastly improved. Every year witnesses the 
increase in the number of states, which provide in their 
constitutions against special charters being made for 
cities, and a number of states are conferring upon the 
cities the right to approve their charters before they 
go into operation. 

Says President Seth Low, at whose feet as at 
those of a master do I sit when studying this interest¬ 
ing question of municipal government, “Everyone 
understands that universal suffrage has its drawbacks, 
and in cities these defects become especially evident. 
It would be uncandid to deny that many of the prob¬ 
lems of American cities spring from this factor. Es¬ 
pecially because the voting population is continually 
swollen by foreign emigrants whom time alone can 
educate into an intelligent harmony with the American 
system. But because there is a scum upon the sur¬ 
face of a boiling liquid it does not follow that the ma¬ 
terial nor the process to which it is subjected is itself 
bad. Universal suffrage as it exists in the United 
States is not only a great element of safety in the 
present day and generation, but is perhaps the 
mightiest educational force to which the masses of 
men have been exposed. . . . It is probable that 

no other system of government would have been able 
to cope any more successfully on the whole with the 
actual condition that American cities have been com¬ 
pelled to face.” 


— 16 — 


Pursuing this “Hierarchy of Liberty,” let us 
briefly consider the next higher relation of the citizen 
to government. Has a half century of universal suf¬ 
frage preserved the institutional rights of the State? 
This is most important in determining whether a 
modification should be made in the existing system, 
for during this period the spirit of Democracy speak¬ 
ing through universal suffrage has exercised un¬ 
limited control of the institutions of our government, 
and could at will change or destroy. Those who 
formed this government knew not well the power they 
were creating. They had only before them the an¬ 
cient Democracies, which universally, from the im¬ 
pulses of passion or of interest, destroyed existing 
conditions and disregarded organic rights. The 
Fathers wished to adopt a plan of government which, 
while it would be Democratic, yet no power of the 
majority could interfere and destroy certain rights 
and organic principles. Hence they created the judi¬ 
ciary, a selected few, and practically said that this 
department of democratic government, within con¬ 
stituted limitations, should be the casting and con¬ 
trolling voice as to the rights most sacred to the people. 
It was certainly a bold idea in the new system of dem¬ 
ocratic government to allow a few to settle the great 
questions affecting the many. Yet to-day, although the 
decisions of the courts have been often times contrary 
to the judgment of the people and sometimes even 
oppressive, yet the spirit of democracy dominated by 
the universal suffrage of the people has left unim¬ 
paired in power and in dignity the courts of the land. 
Nay more, appreciating that national and state life can 
only live through the stable and impartial spirit of jus¬ 
tice, it has enlarged and widened the powers of the 
courts until to-day, in the estimation of the people, 


— 17 — 


and in fact, they embody the highest and most sublime 
attributes of this free nation. 

The Fathers haying in mind the immense powers 
of the executive head of the British Government gave 
the veto power sparingly and grudgingly to the 
executives of the states, yet the people under the in¬ 
fluences of universal suffrage have doubly guaranteed 
the states against their own acts and during the life¬ 
time of the present system of franchise have practically 
given the salutary power of veto, excepting possibly 
in two or three instances, to the governor of every 
state in the Union. 

The fear has been on the part of those interested in 
our institutions that the majority, uncontrolled, would 
weaken and practically destroy the binding and or¬ 
ganic powers of the state constitutions, and introduce 
a doctrine of loose interpretation of their important 
provisions. What has been the result? Constitu¬ 
tional provisions created in the early days of the 
states have been strengthened in detail and particular 
until every organic right of to-day is protected as 
never before in the history of civil government. 

Instead of license and instability of organic gov¬ 
ernment, universal suffrage has increased conserva¬ 
tism, and in one hundred years only the post-bellum 
amendments have been added to the Constitution, and 
unless it is absolutely and potently demanded an 
amendment to the state constitution universally meets 
defeat at the hands of the people. 

Although the legislatures are the nearest repre¬ 
sentative agents of the people, still by constitutional 
enactment the legislatures of the states are hedged 
about by stringent provisions, holding them to strict 
accountability in every sense of their legislative 
life. 


— 18 — 


The great principles of Magna Charta, those 
primordial rights as to life, liberty and property, 
under our suffrage system, have been strengthened by 
the people ; and year by year, in essence and by legis¬ 
lative enactment, they have become the increasing 
breath of the State. Universal suffrage has accentu¬ 
ated the sacred rights of free speech, the freedom of re¬ 
ligion, the supremacy of the civil over the military au¬ 
thority, the rights of the press, and the sacredness of 
vested property in its various forms, calling forth from 
Sir Henry Maine, certainly no friend of popular gov¬ 
ernment, the encomium, that “all this beneficent pros¬ 
perity reposes on the sacredness of contract and the 
stability of private property ; the first the implement, 
and the last the reward of success in the universal 
competition,” and in a democracy generally emphasiz¬ 
ing, “that this is a government of law, not of men.” 

Whilst the organic powers of the state have been 
strengthened by the people, yet state socialism under 
universal suffrage has not grown with the growth of 
the people. To live by taxation imposed by the state 
upon some other person and to exist by the exertion 
of others is the temptation of the body politic of a free 
government. A half century ago when the spirit of 
universal suffrage became the policy of our country, a 
great Englishman remarked, “In thirty years the 
American states will be cooking for the populace.” 
Notwithstanding the unexampled and marvelous in¬ 
crease in the complexities of government and in the 
essentials of our civilization, to-day, whilst the people 
hold absolutely in their strong hands the purse 
strings of taxation and the whole power of the state, 
and whilst the conditions of life have become neces¬ 
sarily more severe with them, yet they have not in¬ 
creased the sphere of the state in lifting from their 


— 19 — 


oftentimes tired shoulders one burden of life. Tempted 
by the fair promises of party, preyed on by the dema¬ 
gogue, in sight of the bursting treasuries of the state, 
yet the sphere of the state, as expressed by the organic 
institutions of to-day, comprises the care of the poor 
and the insane, the establishment of hospitals, the 
education of the people, the management of the state 
machinery, in both the spirit, and in almost the exact 
words, as penned by the hands of the Constitution 
makers of a century ago. Whenever an enlightened so¬ 
cialism has enlarged this sphere of the state it has al¬ 
ways been a necessary concomitant of, and logical se¬ 
quence to, these original organic powers of the state 
and never for the individual material benefit of the 
citizen. The Patriarclia is still a dream as it was in 
the days of Sir Robert Filmer, and universal suffrage 
has not purchased the ease of the people at the price 
of the paternalism of the state. It has grasped 
the principles of universal education as the broadest 
and best foundation for republican institutions ; and 
whilst the State succeeded the Church as the controlling 
influence in directing education, still under pressure, 
oftentimes great, the people have resolutely clung to 
the principles of absolute divorce from sectarian re¬ 
ligious teaching on the part of the State. Excepting 
under peculiar conditions in one portion of our country, 
the principle of universal suffrage has been widened by 
the state until it enfolds all of the people. The seeming 
anomaly of its arrested development in one section is 
particularly germane to this branch of discussion, as 
to the relation of the people to the State, and with your 
permission I will briefly consider the peculiar condi¬ 
tions of suffrage in the South. 

Will you not to-night, for a short time, listen to a 
Southern man, as he endeavors to lay upon your 


— 20 — 


broad shoulders a little of the burden which has 
weighed so heavily upon the shoulders of your sisters 
of the South, and to explain why the march of the uni¬ 
versal franchise has been delayed in the South? No 
good Southern man fears to trust implicitly the 
chivalry of the North. Necessarily, I can occupy but 
a short time upon this interesting question, and will 
but generally consider it. 

When the war ended, from Virginia to Georgia, 
the yellow Southern sun looked down upon ruin un¬ 
paralleled in the history of civilization. The cities 
were destroyed, and the lands were devastated. We 
were without clothes, or money, or food. Our fathers 
and brothers were sleeping in 

“The voiceless graves where dead men dream.” 

Our industries were paralyzed, and our civiliza¬ 
tion was uprooted. There was alone left the bright 
sun, the fruitful soil, and a far-away hope. These 
would have been sufficient foundation upon which a 
resolute and energetic people could have again reared 
an abiding and glorious civilization. But, sir, in the 
years gone by, on the shores of Old Virginia, there 
landed a ship 

“Built in the eclipse and rigged with curses dark,” 

and when the man of the South lifted his despairing 
eyes they beheld his former slave, uneducated, untried 
in government, untouched with the genius of rule, 
unpermeated with Americanism, sitting on the broken 
porticos and bestriding the fallen pillars of his state. 
Since Alaric and Attilla scourged Europe, never has 
wrong so wrought upon the civilization of the world 
as it did in the years of Negro rule in the South. 
I turn with sorrow from the dreadful record, and only 




— 21 — 


look back upon the wretchedness of the Past in order 
to explain the complexity of the Present. 

The debts of the Southern States were increased 
four hundred millions of dollars. States were pauper¬ 
ized, and the millions squandered went into the hands 
of the Negroes and their allies, and not in the chan¬ 
nels of good government. Debauchery ran riot, and 
political dishonesty held a saturnalia equaled in its 
unspeakable horrors only in the last days of Imperial 
Rome. Law was disregarded, the rights of Habeas 
Corpus and the great fundamental principles of Anglo- 
Saxon government were laughed to scorn ; juries were 
packed and courts debauched; men were not allowed 
to appear in court to show cause why they should 
not be bereft of their remaining property. The su¬ 
preme courts were travesties, and were packed or 
elected to do the bidding of those who wished to legal¬ 
ize by the terms of the law some legislative crime. 

What was the natural result of this terrible con¬ 
dition of social and state life? Men seeing the state 
forever ruined, their property confiscated, their very 
lives in danger, business paralyzed, taxes increased an 
hundredfold, and property destroyed, did many things, 
dictated by the sole spirit of self-preservation, which 
were not understood by the North at the time. 

Let us speak plainly and yet with charity. We 
are brothers and each wants to understand the trou¬ 
bles of the other. Here has been the chief trouble in 
this great question. The negro question has been 
made a political cry and the mere flotsam and jetsam 
of party. It is the most important question, political 
as well as economical, which has ever confronted 
civilization at any time or in any country. It demands 
all of our power, all of our love and patience and for¬ 
bearance, and it should be worked out by the whole 


— 22 — 


people uninfluenced by the demagogue or the wish 
of party. We, of the South, ask that you simply 
put yourselves in the position of your Southern 
brethren. I mean, Sir, only in your kindly imagina¬ 
tion, for with all of the strength of my life, I pray that 
you and the North may never walk the road of suffer¬ 
ing and sorrow as has the South. Consider the funda¬ 
mental difference in your political and social situation 
and that of the South. 

Your sole cause of complaint as to popular govern¬ 
ment is that you have a large number of foreigners in 
your population. They are of the same blood, of the 
same color, largely of the same language, and filled 
with the same aspirations as yourselves, and are rap¬ 
idly assimilating with you in character and in life. 

With us there is an alien race, different in color, 
in life, and with whom as a primordial factor of his 
being the Teuton has strenuously refused to assimilate 
in blood, in social existence or in government. 

Mr. Chairman, to emphasize this sad condition of 
the South, let me say that at the time the South was 
placed under the feet of the negro and his white al¬ 
lies, not more than one-tenth of them could read and 
write ; and as late as 1880 only three-tenths were able 
to read and write. 

It was Mr. Lincoln’s intention to bring the States 
back into the Union with the white man in control. 
This is clearly shown by his proclamation in reference 
to North Carolina. His plan was to bring back this 
state with the voters who were qualified in 1860. These 
voters, of course, were the white men. Later he 
was in favor of allowing the intelligent negro to 
vote. He penetrated more profoundly than any other 
statesman of his era into the deep mystery of the 
civil life in the South, surrounded as it was by its pe- 




— 23 — 

culiar political and social conditions. He thoroughly 
understood, imbued as he was with the very genius of 
free government, and believing in the exercise of the 
franchise by all of the people, that the conditions sur¬ 
rounding the South were peculiar and unique, and 
that the franchise provisions applicable to the country 
at large would not apply to the South. He wrote 
Governor Hahn of Louisiana : “Now you are about to 
have a convention, which, among other things, will 
probably define the elective franchise, I barely sug¬ 
gest for your private consideration, whether some of 
the colored people may not be let in ; as, for instance, 
the very intelligent, and especially those who have 
fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably 
help in some trying time to come to keep the jewel of 
liberty in the family of freedom. ’ ’ 

With that marvelous intuition into the innermost 
workings of the peoples’ being, Mr. Lincoln saw then, 
that which has cost us a third of a century of heart 
burnings and misunderstandings and loss to learn, 
that the govermental problem of the North and West 
to be solved by a people of the same race and color, 
homogeneous in educational and civil traditions, was 
totally different in every element from that to be 
worked out by the South, with its Caucasian civiliza¬ 
tion intermixed with, and oftentimes dominated in 
numbers by, a race different in color, genius and tra¬ 
dition, and just emerging from centuries of slavery. 
But Mr. Lincoln’s death blasted the hopes of the 
South, and in the war between Congress and Andrew 
Johnson, the South fell heir to the horrors of Recon¬ 
struction. 

Then arose the Kuklux trouble, and there were 
passed many improvident laws by the South, and then 


— 24 — 


occurred on both sides those matters, which in the 
heated state of public feeling, were the cause of the 
North and South not abiding together in peace and 
in unity. Truly it was a situation for the South 
which had no hope in its dark bosom, and however 
decided would mean ultimate hurt to her and her in¬ 
stitutions. 

The men of the South saw the sad ruin in char¬ 
acter and credit, the paralysis of public and private 
business, and that personal and political crime was 
open and unabashed. They did exactly that which 
the people of the North would have done under the 
same circumstances. They asserted themselves and 
saved the state from the ruin impending and drove 
the negro from control. Yet, on the other hand, they 
knew that they violated the letter of the Constitution 
and infringed upon the fundamental theory of our gov¬ 
ernment. Every intelligent Southern man knew this 
and regretted the situation. Mr. Chairman, was there 
ever such a condition presented to a free people? To 
have bowed to the will of the majority, we would have 
beheld a land 

“ Its shores 

Strewn with the wreck of fleets, where mast and hull 
Drop away piecemeal; battlemented walls 
Frown idly, green with moss, and temples stand 
Unroofed, forsaken by the worshipers. 

Foundations of old cities and long streets 
Where never fall of human foot is heard 
Upon the desolate pavement.” 

To do otherwise was to offend against the funda¬ 
mental laws governing the life of a free government. 

Now, Sir, the South intends to do away with this 
anamolous condition. The men of the South under¬ 
stand the lesson their enforced condition has com- 


— 25 — 


pelled them to teach. They intend to work out this 
question under the spirit and the letter of the Con¬ 
stitution. The reason why this absolute fairness has 
been delayed was the memory of the negro rule and 
control in the South, and, further, that the South 
did not intend to place its future with all of its marvel¬ 
ous possibilities in the control of the forces which 
wrecked it during the Reconstruction period. Whilst 
holding the political situation in their own hands, they 
propose to treat the negro fairly under the Constitu¬ 
tion of the country. Throughout the whole of the 
South, there has been, and is now, a movement for 
constitutional conventions in the direction of pure 
government. These conventions are not, as some 
understand, to get rid of the vote of the negro or of 
his control. The white man dominates politically in 
every Southern State. The conventions are in the 
direction of constitutional government and pure elec¬ 
tions and fairness to the negro, and are intended as a 
legal and honest method by which the Southern States 
can relieve themselves of their trouble and perplexity 
and do justice to the election laws of the country, 
and at the same time preserve their civilization. 

I have no intent or desire to avoid a fair state¬ 
ment of the situation ; but I am placing it before you 
in all honesty and simplicity in order that you will 
understand that the South is attempting, with the 
little light before us, to work out for this country the 
question which tangles our feet in whatever path we 
would turn. 

.Personally, I have earnestly urged that the South 
should adopt an inflexible educational or property basis, 
administered fairly for both white and black. I believe 
that this would work out the question, and the South 


— 26 — 


is gradually arriving at the conclusion that it can, by 
constitutional method, preserve the spirit of the Consti¬ 
tution and save its civilization. It desires and intends 
to give the negro his constitutional rights, and has only 
been heretofore debarred from so doing by the fear of 
the destruction of that which a state holds most 
sacred. The energy of the South is being earn¬ 
estly devoted to educating the negro in order to, as 
quickly as possible, make him a good and intelligent 
citizen. Groping in the dark, we grant that often¬ 
times wrong has been done to the negro. This the 
South deplores, whilst not for a moment intending to 
assent to the truth of the thousands of the baseless 
charges which have been made against her in the 
treatment of this question. In our impoverishment, 
we have given one hundred million dollars to the 
education of the negro, and we are to-day impartially 
dividing with him our every dollar, in order that we 
may work out for this country and for mankind the 
darkest riddle which has ever confronted and per¬ 
plexed civilization. Whilst the South is doing her 
part, the negro has responded nobly by a splendid 
progress in education and in those virtues which will 
ultimately make him useful instead of a menace to 
civilization. 

The settlement of this momentous question can¬ 
not be accomplished in a day. Time must be one of 
the chief factors. In adjusting the political relations 
of the negro and the white man, living together, with 
no precedent to guide, there have necessarily resulted 
many mistakes. But the situation will be worked out 
with justice to the negro, with honor to the white 
man, and in consonance with the spirit of the Consti¬ 
tution. In the progress towards constitutional gov¬ 
ernment in the South, although believing firmly in 


— 27 — 


universal suffrage, many of us, friends of the negro, 
have advocated a franchise limitation as an immediate 
step from the anomaly of to-day and towards the con¬ 
summation of fair government for white and black. 

This seemingly anomalous position has not been 
brought about by a spirit of unfairness towards the ne¬ 
gro or by instability of our political opinion. It does not 
furnish any argument for the imposition of a franchise 
limitation throughout the country. The situation must 
be looked at under the plain light. The men who be¬ 
lieve in a franchise limitation for the South are un¬ 
questioned as to their friendship for the negro ; but 
they know and understand the conditions in the 
South. These conditions are unprecedented in po¬ 
litical history, unexampled in civilization, and abso¬ 
lutely unique in their relations to the other portions 
of the country. In the country at large universal 
suffrage means civil splendor, commercial and per¬ 
sonal welfare, pure government, peace and progress. 
In the South it means prostration of the State, an¬ 
archy, commercial and personal ruin, and a war of 
races, destructive to state and social government. 
Upon one principle, however, the relations of the 
South to the country at large are upon the same 
level; and that is, whatever franchise limitations may 
be imposed by the South to preserve her civilization, 
should be administered with unsparing impartiality 
alike for white and black, and the South intends that 
this shall be. 

It is important to consider for a moment the 
effect which the era of universal suffrage has had 
upon the relation between the States and the National 
Government. The early sentiment was that universal 
suffrage would retard the growth of the nationality of 


this government. In other words, having the ancient 
democracies in mind, not differentiating between 
them and our representative system of government, 
many feared that, under a wide franchise, popular li¬ 
cense would trend in the direction of the increase in the 
powers of the states. At that period the great pre¬ 
ponderating powers of the states led to the free enter¬ 
taining of this view. In the majority of conflicts 
with the National Government, the States had won. 
They had taken advantage of every question and 
doubt as to the reservation of their powers under the 
Constitution, and had most vigorously availed them¬ 
selves of these reserved rights. Thus, at this period, 
the States had grown relatively so powerful that it led 
DeTocqueville to declare that the Union was desired 
only as a shadow, and that ultimately its existence 
would be endangered by the preponderating power of 
the States in the social compact. The present condi¬ 
tion of the balance in our social affairs shows the 
complete failure in the prognostications of that day 
as to the effect of universal suffrage upon the gov¬ 
ernmental relations under the social compact. In 
the years of universal suffrage in this country the 
balance of the government has been restored, and in¬ 
stead of popular license and national disintregation, 
and the increase in the already overweening powers 
of the States, the National Government has been 
relatively strengthened. The governmental condi¬ 
tion of to-day shows the great skill of its creation, 
for whilst the war left the National Government 
with vastly increased powers, yet the causes of fric¬ 
tion have been largely removed between the concur¬ 
rent powers under the Constitution, and there is to-day 
a smoother running between the States and the Na¬ 
tional Government than has ever been known in the 




— 29 — 


history of our country. It gives a great impetus to 
optimism when we observe that, notwithstanding the 
great war, which was practically a war of the General 
Government against the sovereignty of the states, that 
the states are to-day as absolutely sovereign within their 
constitutional powers as ever before. The chief fear 
of to-day, however, is the tendency of greatly increased 
power in the general government, as the danger was 
fifty years ago in the enlarged powers on the part of 
the states. 

The Supreme Court of the United States has up¬ 
held the constitutional rights of the states in their re¬ 
lation to the General Government, as well as vigor¬ 
ously maintaining their internal rights, and public 
sentiment appreciating the tremendous power which 
the General Government exhibited in the great civil 
conflict, and its consequent preponderance necessarily 
arising from that exhibition of strength, has been 
earnestly aroused in the past few years in the direction 
of preserving intact the Constitutional rights of the 
states. As a great scholar well observes, ‘‘This reliance 
(upon national authority), however, is controlled and 
regulated by the deep-seated consciousness of the 
people that the rights of the separate states are not to 
be superseded by the acts of the Central Government, 
and that the rights of town, counties and districts are 
to be protected against the arbitrary interference of 
legislation.” In this relation is peculiarly needed 
that “righting sense” of the people, undiminished in 
power, to watch and preserve within their respective 
bounds those delicate relations between the State and 
General Government. 

Let us for a moment investigate the relations of 
the citizen each to the other, and practically speaking, 
the effect of universal sufferage upon the classes. 


— 30 — 


This has been the subject of infinite discussion by the 
learned. Will you pardon me for an observation as 
to the general consideration of this important question 
by the scholars. They have largely affected the pub¬ 
lic sentiment among the higher classes. The want of 
breadth in the elucidation of this question of universal 
suffrage by the learned emboldens me, a plain man, 
to ask for a deeper and more real knowledge of the 
people on the part of the learned of our country. 
They have wrought infinite harm to the body politic 
by opinions betraying want of knowledge of the people 
themselves, the real subject of discussion. Do not 
the conclusions of the learned as to the great public 
too frequently result from investigation and experi¬ 
ence alike limited and indiscriminate in application? 
Do not those in high places most frequently neglect 
the strenuous exercise of that ars profunda, that 
deeper penetration into the very life and genius of the 
people? That subtle spirit, that vital essence of the 
people’s being is the most difficult to grasp, and it can 
only be comprehended by that knowledge of the life, 
the thoughts, the habits and the desires of the people, 
by an investigation alike profound as it is rare. 

The destiny of a nation cannot be forecast and 
its civic phenomena adequately explained from ex¬ 
perience touching the abuse of one privilege, the 
failure of one system, or the wrongdoing of one class. 
The study of the effect of a system in the city, with its 
peculiar relations to the body politic, will not suffice 
as the foundation of an opinion as to the country 
at large. The study is too narrow. Rather to 
control the thought, and direct our hope, there 
should be a study of these eternal principles which 
are deep in the very spirit and breath of the people 
and which alone guide the destiny of a nation. I 





— 31 — 


repeat that this experience can only arise from a wide 
study of the people itself. Appreciating those who 
love the books and respecting “that wit of wisdom,” 
still the highest essential in investigating the people 
is that rare combination of mind and experience 
which can both touch elbows with the thought of the 
people and deduce therefrom a right conclusion. I 
have in my mind a book of a teacher of youth, 
who, should he have lived in the Athenian days, 
would surely have owed a cock to Asclepius, 
wherein, with the authority of high place, he teaches 
the youth that the majority of those who pre¬ 
dominate in the exercise of universal suffrage are 
vicious and ignorant and love the gambling den, the 
brothel, the saloon and the prize ring to the exercise 
of pure politics. Sir, such deductions, their founda¬ 
tions untrue in fact and defective in investigation, 
lower the moral tone of the student and dishonor the 
citizens of the Republic. Against such teachings, in 
the name of the millions of clean-hearted and pure- 
breathed men, whose eyes never beheld the gilding 
of the saloon and whose souls never knew the infection 
of the brothel, and who, whilst the furniture may be 
scanty and the floors bare, hallow the rented house 
with the unspeakable glory of an honest, pure and 
independent citizenship, whose hands, though hard¬ 
ened with work, would spurn the touch of unearned 
gold, and whose hope and ambition is to leave to 
their children that same incorruptible citizenship be¬ 
queathed to them by the Fathers of the Republic, and 
in the name of the youth of our country, whose minds 
are corrupted by such teachings, I enter my earnest 
protest and dissent. To those who discuss without 
kindliness or moderation the great problems of our 
national existence, I beg that from the poet of dark- 


— 32 — 


ened Persia they will read that lesson of moderation 
which they have failed to grasp under a century of 
free government. 

“And Abraham sat in the door of his tent about 
the going down of the sun. 

And behold, a man bowed with age came from 
the way of the wilderness, leaning on a staff. 

And Abraham arose and met him, and said, 
Turn in, I pray thee, and Abraham baked un¬ 
leavened bread and they did eat. 

And when Abraham saw that the man blessed 
not God, he said unto him, Wherefore dost thou not 
worship the most high God, Creator of heaven and 
earth ? 

And the man answered and said, I do not worship 
the God thou speakest of, neither do I call upon his 
name. 

And Abraham’s zeal was kindled against the man, 
and he arose and drove him forth with blows into the 
wilderness. 

And, at midnight, God called upon Abraham, 
saying, Abraham, where is the stranger? 

And Abraham answered and said, Lord, he would 
not worship thee, neither would he call upon thy 
name, therefore I have driven him out before my face 
into the wilderness. 

And God said, Have I borne with him these hun¬ 
dred ninety and eight years, and clothed him, not¬ 
withstanding his rebellion against me, and couldst not 
thou, that art thyself a sinner, bear with him one 
night? 

And Abraham said, Let not the anger of the Lord 
wax hot against his servant, for lo I have sinned, for¬ 
give me, I pray thee. 

And Abraham arose and went forth into the 




— 33 — 


wilderness, and returned with the man to the tent, 
and when he had entreated him kindly, he sent him 
away on the morrow with gifts.” 

Those who look with doubt and uncertainty up‘on 
our future remind me that the spirit of democracy in 
our country is weakening the foundations of Home, 
and is dimming the light which touches, with the 
glory of holiness, the marital bed. I am not invading 
the realm of sociology. The purity of the people is 
the foundation of the civil life of the Republic. It is 
the very foundation of our political existence. To 
prove the tendencies towards the increasing laxity of 
our civil life under the Democracy of the day, I am con¬ 
fronted with statistics showing the increase of di¬ 
vorces. Sir, I understand not the jargon of statistics, 
nor do I trust their rigid conclusions when they conflict 
with the experiences of my daily life. To believe them 
is to believe that the veil of the temple has surely 
been rent in twain and the sacred homes of the people 
have been filled with “Gorgons, Hydras and Chime¬ 
ras dire.” I deny the foul aspersion. I have lived 
my life with the people of the mountains and the coun¬ 
try. Here the vast bulk of the population live. 
Here, beside the streams, and on the majestic plains, 
and in the mountains, is the fate of the Republic. By 
the streams and in the mountains in all the days has 
God talked with the people, and here, away from the 
hurry of the city, is the place of the true contempla¬ 
tion of these vital questions of the Republic. No sta¬ 
tistical measuring rod can reach the homes of the 
people. Sir, in my lifetime I have seen the whole order 
of life changed, and by the thunderous tramp of your 
legions in blue our Southern civilization was shaken 
to ruin. Amid its wreck and revolution, sundered 
from every tie except that of the little ones, with a 


— 34 — 


guard as of the fiery Cherubim warning her away 
from the gates of Home, alone the mother and wife of 
the South was touched by no change or revolution. 
Turning calmly without a sigh from the gentleness of 
home, she gave herself to the higher, sweeter and 
better life, and her nature has not lost its purity and 
gentleness, nor has her soul been touched or hurt 
with the hardness of life. Despite casuist and statis¬ 
tician, above the glory of man’s effort and success, 
more potent than power or prestige, there is one spirit 
untouched, and that is the central figure of American 
life, the wife and the mother of the American home. 
To-night, under the stars when the day is done, if, 
with noiseless fingers, we could touch the veil of the 
temple in the homes of the people, 

“ Those everlasting gardens, 

Where angels walk and the seraphs are the wardens,” 

we would behold the mother, pure and unspotted, 
gathering to her knees the little ones, white robed and 
clean, and we would hear, like incense, ascending to 
the open gates, from the prairie and the mountain, 
and from mansion house and farm and city, over the 
borders of this mighty Republic, from the myriads of 
homes, the sweetest prayer ever murmured by wor¬ 
shiping lips : 

“ Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray the Lord my soul to keep; 

If I should die before I wake, 

I pray the Lord my soul to take.” 

Here still dwells the immortality of the Republic, 
with its plenitude of pure civil life, and surely here 
lives, in ancient vigor, the true spirit of our great¬ 
ness. In the homes of our Republic is our hope of 
civil immortality, and that hope rises triumphant over 
all difficulties and complications. For around their 



— 35 — 


sacred portals lingers the golden sunshine, which is 
perennial, and whose splendor is not dimmed by the 
march of the day. No, sir, the spirit of Democracy 
has crowned the head of the American home with an 
increasing manliness known in no other country under 
the sun, and has touched the life of his helpmate with 
a spirit of virtue and gentleness which grows in its 
marvelous beauty as the years march along. 

It is stated with all the power of authority that 
one of the tendencies of universal suffrage has been 
to increase the power of party and to render po¬ 
litical strife more acute, and thus make party more 
dangerous to the Republic. Is this our experience? 
It seems to me that the result of the exercise of uni¬ 
versal suffrage has been to cause more independence 
of party and more moderation than ever before. I 
appeal, Sir, to the facts. In the last election, whose 
mighty throbs we still feel, there was a greater 
“scratching” of ballots than ever before known in the 
history of this government. The Independent in 
politics has largely been the growth of the last quarter 
of a century. A careful investigation of the ballots, 
an examination of the ballot commissioners, and 
an analysis of the vote in ten separate states, disclose, 
as never before, the gradual disenthrallment of the 
voter from party. I call your attention to another 
statement which, but to mention, carries with it this 
conclusion. There was never before in your ex¬ 
perience or in mine a time when the independent 
voter was so important and so absolutely inde¬ 
pendent. Aye, more than this, there has never 
been a period since this country was divided by 
well-defined parties when a man could, with so much 
equanimity and with as little criticism, turn his back 
upon his party and upon all of his political traditions 


— 36 — 


as to-day. The protest against the corruption of 
the day is growing in character and power as never 
before. In the South, where [politics is a passion 
and where party fealty is of the first importance, 
the independent in politics is the greatest political 
phenomenon of our time. Consider this question 
somewhat more broadly than in relation to the mere 
voter. Look for a moment at the attitude of the press 
to party. We have seen within six years dozens of 
great newspapers of the country break away from 
party affiliation. The country w T ithin the last 
ten years has been filled with political clubs and 
associations, growing in power and importance, 
with independence of party as the sole reason for 
their existence. With the rise of these powerful 
associations has marched the magazine and news¬ 
paper, entirely independent as to political control, 
and reserving the right to criticize or to oppose party. 

What has been the tendency of the day under 
this system in reference to the acerbity and virulence 
of party politics? Under the existence of universal 
suffrage the trend of sentiment has been distinctly 
towards moderation. The scandals, the hatred, the 
villification and the rancor of the old days of the Re¬ 
public are to-day almost unheard of and would not be 
tolerated. Let us, for a moment, turn for proof to 
the past and listen to the turbulent sounds from the 
golden days of the Republic. Says Mr. Jefferson, 
“You and I have formerly seen warm debates and 
high political passions. But gentlemen of different 
politics would then speak to each other and separate 
the business of the Senate from that of society. It is 
not so now. Men who have been intimate all their 
lives cross the street to avoid meeting and turn their 



— 37 — 


heads another way lest they should be obliged to 
touch their hats.” 

De Tocqueville quotes the language of the first 
newspaper upon which his eyes fell when he arrived 
in this country, and the expressions therein contained 
concerning the President would not to-day be tolerated. 
Contrast this with the American experience of a great 
Englishman of to-day. Says Professor Bryce : “Parti¬ 
sans are reckless, but the mass of the people lends it¬ 
self less to acrid partisanship than it did in the time 
of Jackson, or in those first days of the Republic, 
which were so long looked back to as a sort of heroic 
age. Public opinion grows more temperate, more 
mellow, and assuredly more tolerant. Its very strength 
disposes it to bear with opposition or remonstrance. 
It respects itself too much to wish to silence any 
voice.” 

An authority of this city teaches that under our 
system of universal suffrage the people are losing their 
love of the united country, and that the bonds bind¬ 
ing us together are loosening. Sir, this cannot be the 
tendency of to-day. Will you allow an illustration to 
the contrary from my own experience? 

Sir, I recall the days of the sorrow of the South, 
and I well remember, when I stood by the open 
grave of a Southern soldier. Our armies had been 
overwhelmed, Virginia was invaded and ruined, and 
our hope was gone. War, ruthless and unsparing, 
and Desolation, grim and terrible, galloped booted and 
ready over the once fair land, and Death, their ever 
present handmaiden, filled the hills with sorrow. 
The green grass was under the mire of the hoof beat, 
and the hope of food for the women and little ones was 
as blasted as the white poverty of the fields. Only 
the cedar and the pine wore their dresses of green as 


— 38 — 


if to touch the despair of the present with a tinge of 
the hope of the future. To the little group of women 
and children and aged men the habiliments of woe 
prescribed by custom were not, for war even denied to 
those who mourned that gentle clinging to those who 
had gone as expressed by the outward tokens of 
sorrow. Here, an old bit of black lace ; there, a wmrn 
piece of crepe, a black belt, a faded hat, mute evi¬ 
dences of the desire to make that show hallowed by 
our custom and love, only too plainly evidenced that 
grief and ruin had in this devoted land touched 
their strong hands. Lifting his eyes to the skies, 
which alone were bright, the aged man of God read 
the wail of the Jews in a foreign land: 

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; 
yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. 

“We hanged our harps upon the willows in the 
midst thereof. 

“For there they that carried us away captive re¬ 
quired of us a song ; and they that wasted us required 
of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. 

“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange 
land?” 

When the ripening harvest was casting its glory 
of yellow grain over our renewed land, verily a fair 
land bursting with plenty and happiness, within a 
year, standing by that soldier’s grave, once the wailing 
place of a conquered people, I listened to a great son 
of the North, our honored guest, once a soldier in 
blue, once our enemy, speaking in burning words to 
the listening soldiers of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall 
Jackson, telling them of the glory of this Union, hal¬ 
lowed by our sufferings and sorrow, and doubly blest 
with the love and peace and happiness of the people. 
Yea, sir, 




— 39 — 


“Hands are clasped in joy unspeakable, 

Old sorrows are forgotten now, 

Or but remembered to make sweet the hour 
That overpays them ; wounded hearts that bled 
Or broke are healed forever.” 

When I have witnessed this most exceeding love, 
then forsooth there must be needed something more 
potent than statistics marshaled under a midnight 
lamp to convince me that new influences arising from 
the political system of to-day can impair the peaceful 
though secret bonds of love binding together the soul 
and life of this great and free people. 

A fierce indictment against universal suffrage is 
that it accentuates and intensifies the tyranny of the 
majority. The Fathers did not so fear this tyranny, 
and they had before them the disturbing ideas of the 
French Democracy. Mr. Jefferson, in his enumera¬ 
tion of the essential principles to be observed by the 
people, places among the first as most sacred that 
“absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority 
the vital principle of Republics from which there is no 
appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate 
parent of despotism.” But, sir, do we have in the 
Republic the tyranny of the majority? Filled with 
the fundamental ideas of the Fathers, and permeated 
with the genius of free government, this has been a 
government where the decrees of the majority be¬ 
come the potent will of the whole people. Here is 
the essential difference between our institutions 
of free government and the fierce dictatorships of 
Southern and Central America masquerading under 
the fair guise of free government. Here the princi¬ 
ples of the majority are assimilated and carried to 
fruition by the whole people. Whilst this is the 
theory and practice of our government, yet the people 


— 40 — 


have wisely conceived the idea that, whilst they ac¬ 
quiesce in the controlling will of the majority, yet 
that the theory of the majority should be worked out 
by the practical assistance of the minority. Hence, 
with universal suffrage was born the theory of minor¬ 
ity representation, and it has grown as part of its life 
and being. This is the creation of the last half cen¬ 
tury, and again it is the people protecting against 
themselves. The desire to preserve the rights of the 
minority has grown with the people in representative 
and district elections, and its principle is practically 
adopted to-day in the State and National Government 
in the exercise of minority representation on every 
important Governmental Board and State Institution. 
Its handmaiden, Civil Service Reform, although suf¬ 
fering the delays incident to all reforms, has taken 
away one of the most potent criticisms against the 
rule of the people, and is day by day making fitness 
and qualification the essentials of place in the govern¬ 
ment. The rapid extension of this salutary principle, 
under the rule of, and accentuated by, the free suffrage 
of the people, is gradually but surely removing any 
danger to the Republic from the tyranny of the ma¬ 
jority. 

I would be false to the spirit which brought me 
here were I to say there are no dangers and no fears 
in the tendencies of the Democracy. Sir, there are 
dangers. There are tendencies which excite the ap¬ 
prehension, if not the fear, of those who love the Re¬ 
public and hallow its faiths and ancestral truths. 
When there are no fears and no apprehensions in this 
free government, the world will again witness a people 
which only wants bread and the games, and whose 
genius is emasculated and whose vitality is stagnant. 
The people have met the vital questions arising 


— 41 — 


from the relations of the State to the General Govern¬ 
ment, and the equally important question of the citi¬ 
zen’s relation to the State, and have solved these 
epochs wisely for free government. 

There is to-day arising an era or epoch in our na¬ 
tional life of far more reaching importance than either 
of the others. These epochs must arise in popular 
government. In aristocracies and monarchies the 
strong, central, guiding hand holds the government 
in the channel and on the quiet sea; and whilst the 
ship of state does not rock, yet it makes less progress 
than when driven by the vigorous strength of a whole 
people. 

An era arises insiduously, and in its womb, hid¬ 
den from the people, are the seeds of disaster and 
death to popular liberty. This tendency must be 
grasped by a people and its progress stopped, or the 
tendency will become inherent and the epoch will burst 
its bounds and the Rubicon will have been passed divid¬ 
ing the people from its liberties. The tendencies of 
an epoch touching the state, guarded by written consti¬ 
tutional limitations, such as the relation of the citizen 
to the State, or the relation of the States to the General 
Government, are not to be greatly feared. The infraction 
of this class of rights cannot be insidious. The written 
law is engraved alike on the brazen posts as well as on the 
hearts of the people, and the approach of danger can be 
seen by all men. The epoch or tendency to be dreaded, 
as containing the very seeds of death to the institu¬ 
tions of a free people, is the era carrying with it the 
hidden dangers involving the division of the people 
into classes, the changing of the relations of the peo¬ 
ple to themselves, the change of sentiment as to the 
ideas of government, and the corruption of the moral 
tissues and life of the people resulting therefrom. 


— 42 — 


Here, sir, is the era of danger to a free people, for it 
is insidious in its approach and rights impinged upon 
are not written. 

Read the history of free government in all ages 
and in all lands, and from all come the mel¬ 
ancholy message that free government has always 
been destroyed from within and never from without. 
It is one broad, marked, unvarying path—a young peo¬ 
ple filled with freedom, simple, economical, patriotic, 
the widening of its power, ships on the seas, luxury 
at home and influence abroad, privileges for some, 
discontent for others, the rich and the poor, a Cleon 
haranguing the people and a Caesar at the Capital. 
A tyro can write the simple story. It seems to me 
that this epoch of our civil life, when the people have 
largely passed the constructive and creative stages of 
the nation’s existence, when the great fundamental 
questions of government have been settled, and the 
people are practically engaged upon these matters 
which shape for all time the texture and mold of the 
individual and class relation and existence, is the most 
important to us and to mankind. 

The epoch of to-day into which the people are 
passing is the era of Commercialism. Its relation is 
most important to the question under discussion. 
Sir, with homage for its power, do I mention the spirit 
of American Commercialism impelled by the restless 
genius of this people. The Hanging Gardens would 
be but a plaything of a day for one of our merchant 
princes, and all the wealth of Rome garnered from 
Asia Minor and Gaul and Egypt and all of the tribute 
lands would not suffice to supply for one year the 
needs of the kings of American commerce. Never 
was there such power. It has surrounded this conti¬ 
nent as a maiden by her girdle. It has pervaded 


— 43 — 


every class. It has turned its eyes to the world, and 
has grasped in its strong hands the whole universe. 
It has flung France aside from its path as a puny 
child. It has stridden past Germany, has throt¬ 
tled England, and stands to-day beside the only 
power, its comparative equal in future commercial 
rule, Imperial Russia. It is building bridges in 
Africa to bear the tramp of the British legions. Its 
rail to-night lies under the snows of Siberia, and be¬ 
hind its engines are heard the strange mutterings of the 
bearded Cossack and fierce Ukranian. It is clothing 
the Celestial in cotton, and it is cutting the bearded 
wheat in Argentina. Strange tongues are whispering 
over its cables strung under strange seas. It is selling 
knives in Sheffield and cloth in France, and is lending 
money to London. It builds warships for the Czar and 
sewing machines for Japan. It digs coal under the 
winds of Magellan, and gold and diamonds in Africa. 
Its ships gather commerce from every port, and it buys 
and sells in every land. It waits not on steam and 
sail, but shakes the continent in its impatient hands 
that the waters of the Orient and Occident may flow 
together to do its bidding. It is omnipresent and almost 
omnipotent. Was there ever such power? It tosses 
millions as the boy flips the marble at his play, and 
its colossal combinations of wealth touch with their 
golden fingers every useful thing. This unprecedented 
growth of commercial life, necessarily expressing it¬ 
self through corporate existence, the growth of inter¬ 
state commerce, the building and operation of the rail¬ 
road, the telegraph and the telephone, and the various 
wonderful and far-reaching combinations, demanding 
immediate results to be effective, necessarily restive 
at all interference, all being the expression of the com¬ 
mercialism of the day, affecting every condition of in- 


— 44 


dividual, social, national and commercial life, de¬ 
mands, as never before, tlie preservation of that es¬ 
sence of our national life and being, the spirit of 
American democracy, in all of its mighty strength and 
unshorn of any of its power. 

Now, sir, do not understand me in the slightest 
degree to underestimate the power for good possessed 
by wealth. I make my obeisance to the great desire 
on the part of wealth to send light where there is 
darkness, to touch the sick and the helpless with 
soothing care, and to erect on the broadest foundation 
its monument to learning and the arts. This is a 
commercial nation, and the desire and power to ac¬ 
quire and use wealth within its legitimate bounds is 
to be honored by every good citizen. What, then, 
are the dangers of commercialism? What are its 
tendencies? Can these tendencies, if dangerous to 
the Republic, be eliminated by the reimposition of a 
restrictive franchise? The danger to the Republic 
from this era is that the legitimate spirit of commer¬ 
cialism will become political commercialism. It is 
rapidly so becoming. I submit, Sir, that this epoch of 
political commercialism, if unchecked in its tendencies, 
will destroy the true ideal of the Republic. In our 
natural haste to grasp and utilize the marvelous mate¬ 
rial conditions vouchsafed to us by a new continent, 
we are losing sight of the Republican principles in¬ 
culcating those high and noble virtues which attended 
the birth of the Republic and which should live as its 
very texture. The love of the welfare of the whole 
people, the wealth of patriotism, that pride of high 
character of those in high places, that jealous desire 
for an exalted ideal for the nation, that thorough 
knowledge of the aims of the government looking not 
alone to self-utilization, seem to me to be lessening 


— 45 — 


under the fierce assault of those conditions which 
allow the citizen to such a vast extent to better his 
material welfare. It will surely beget a lower stand¬ 
ard of civil life and desire. It is weakening the true 
spirit of democracy. Under the spirit as well as the 
letter of our institutions we can have no patent of 
nobility, but have we not established a class with suc¬ 
cess in accumulation as its real patent of nobility? 
Are we not making the standard of our ideal of cit¬ 
izenship, that of breadth of acres and numbers of 
stocks and wealth of possessions, rather than that of 
statesmanship, profound learning, exalted patriotism 
and unselfish citizenship? Would not the people 
to-day prefer Themistocles rather than listen to Aris¬ 
tides ; and with the dominance of this spirit, so variant 
from the true idea of democracy, would not Jove soon 
fill the other urn with disastrous fullness. The real 
spirit of democracy, has been tumbling empires, and 
overthrowing kingdoms, and lifting the peoples of the 
world to abetter and higher condition of life. Would 
not a change in its very life and texture bereave it of 
its real glory and power? Oh, my country, 

“ If thou do’st consent 
To this most cruel act, do but despair; 

And if thou want’st a cord, the smallest thread 
That spider ever twisted from her womb, 

Will serve to strangle thee.” 

The true ideal of democracy as exemplified by 
this government is to bear to the world the sublime 
message of help, and implant in the heart of the na¬ 
tions the spirit of hope of freedom and of improvement 
in every condition, social and governmental. Are we 
not changing the true spirit of this high ideal and 
giving to the world the message of almost infinite 
material power, of ability to trade and hold with the 


— 46 — 


strong hand and nothing more ? I was looking once at 
a statute of Hercules, chiseled by a forgotten hand. 
It is different from all others I have ever seen and 
represented the ideal of my country. High intelli¬ 
gence beamed from its lofty brow and cultured features ; 
withal it was strong and powerful, yet its strength 
was graced by beauty and activity. Nearby was the 
old ideal which we know so well, thews of brass, a 
jaw of iron and the lowering brow, the idealization 
alone of unmixed power. Are we not nearing this 
ideal of national life? Do not, I pray you, Mr. Chair¬ 
man, think me wanting in the feeling of hospitality 
or in that spirit of high appreciation of your courtesy, 
or that I am filled with an impossible spirit of knight 
errantry, when I stand here in the heart of this im¬ 
perial market-place and discuss commercialism. But, 
sir, I am profoundly impressed with the dangers of 
this tendency, and I would be recreant to my duty to 
my country and disingenuous to those who are here 
seeking for the truth, were I to dissemble or palter 
with this most vital question of our national life. 

This spirit has been the tendency of all the ages, 
and the broad highway of the world is strewn with 
the whitened bones of the nations which traversed the 
fundamental ideas controlling their creation and life. 
With this tendency so potent and so plain, and arising 
almost universally from the higher and powerful 
classes, should we take the tremendous risk of in any¬ 
wise interfering with the power in the hands of the 
masses of the people? Should we at this time lay 
our hands on the real corrective of this tendency which 
lies within the plainer and poorer people? 

Sir, this spirit of commercialism, acting through 
vast aggregations, must have power, inordinate power. 
The attainment of some great selfish purpose, the 


— 47 — 


settlement of some commercial principle, the procur¬ 
ing of a franchise belonging to the people, the levying 
of taxes in one or another form, the obtaining of 
some special class privilege, the lifting of a burden 
from one shoulder to be placed upon another, are but 
a few illustrations of the growing power which has 
not in view the liberty or the good of the people, but 
only looks to selfish ends. Then, sir, from this spirit 
arises that appalling corruption which has spread its 
powerful influence over this country and which is to¬ 
day the chief danger to democratic institutions. 

The Fathers of this Government, with the pre¬ 
science which characterized their formulation of its 
principles, understood that the danger to a free gov¬ 
ernment lay in the corruption of the body politic. It 
is but a truism to again reiterate this fear on the part 
of the Fathers. They discounted every great ten¬ 
dency of the Democracy, and in the formulation of 
their govermental principles arranged to counteract 
these tendencies. There have been no unforseen ten¬ 
dencies of the Democracy. Yet, sir, they never for a 
moment understood the vast influences of commercial¬ 
ism which have been sown like the fabled dragons’ 
teeth over the fields of the people. Let us here to-day 
be plain with each other. The trouble with the 
higher classes of the American people has been that 
they have not been ingenuous in dealing with this 
great question. It is remarkable, but it is true, that 
anything that concerns the commercial life of the 
people is touched tenderly by the intelligent classes. 
It seems to me that the tendency of the Democracy 
demands plain speaking on the part of those who are 
interested in the immortality of our free institutions. 
The Republic is in danger. From what source does the 
corruption spring, Mr. Chairman? Consider the ma- 


— 48 — 


chinery of a national campaign of to-day and you will 
have the answer. What is its chief burden? To 
formulate great principles touching the domestic, the 
national and international policies of the Government? 
No, sir; it is to raise vast sums of money. For what 
purpose? It would be cowardice for me to state that 
these enormous sums are for any purpose other than 
for the ultimate corruption of the people. Even with 
the teeming millions of our country these sums could 
not be legitimately spent. Who contributes them? 
The plain people, forsooth? Not a dollar ! It comes 
by the thousands and the hundreds of thousands from 
those who expect to control the governmental policies of 
the country. Through this power, and we are not now 
considering the tremendous potentialities of the great 
vested influences in active operation upon the body 
politic, do we see the spirit of political commercial¬ 
ism having its dire effect upon the people. It 
bestrides both the parties like a Collossus and de¬ 
mands from your Congress and your Legislatures the 
price of its contribution. We are told that this inter¬ 
est in politics is solely for protection. In some in¬ 
stances such is the case. But in the more frequent 
instances the commercial interest is fiercely aggressive 
and demands from Congress and Legislature some 
higher tariff or lower tax or special privilege. It is 
true, Sir, that the great vested interests of this country 
are often threatened by the demagogue, but only infre¬ 
quently does he have any practical effect upon legis¬ 
lation or upon the control of affairs. We are fright¬ 
ened with the cry of agrarianism and the enact¬ 
ment of laws against fair treatment of vested inter¬ 
ests ; but, Sir, I can count on the fingers of one hand 
the states where the people have passed laws unjustly 
discriminating against the great commercial inter- 


— 49 — 


ests of this country. Says a great authority: “In 
no country in the world is property as secure as it 
is with us. The guarantees of a constitution now, 
Mr. Bancroft tells us, the oldest in Christendom, have 
intrenched it against public as well as private at¬ 
tack. The British Parliament during the last half of 
the century has destroyed vested rights, broken up 
titles, seized private property for private use, in a way 
that to an American seems almost revolutionary” 

Mr. Bryce observes that bribery does not directly 
touch the people. To differ with Mr. Bryce is to in¬ 
vite most serious controversy. The condition of to¬ 
day, however, shows the fell progress of corruption. 
I have seen the shambles of corruption, filled with 
money from high places, opened wide and with 
scarcely a pretense of concealment until the outraged 
decency of the plain people rebelled. I speak earn¬ 
estly, because it is the vital question of our national 
life, whether or not the ballot box, the sacred custo¬ 
dian of the liberties of the people, reflects the unbi¬ 
ased and unpurchased opinion of the people. From 
this spirit of corruption arises the Machine and the 
Boss, for without money and its attending sinister in¬ 
fluences they cannot live in the pure air of our free 
institutions. What I am attempting to inculcate is 
that political immorality comes not from the plain 
people, but most largely from the influences dominated 
by the higher class, which class cannot be reached by 
the reimposition of a franchise limitation. 

How change these tendencies? How guide the 
mighty river so that its flood may fructify the earth 
and all of its peoples? The tendencies towards evil 
are not yet flowing with the blood and do not yet in¬ 
here into the bone of the people, This change cannot 
be accomplished by Courts of Impeachment, and Re- 


— 50 — 


moval, the Referendum, the Electoral Delegates and 
the thousand nostrums which are the mere modifica¬ 
tions of the machinery of government, unaccompanied 
by the pure controlling spirit of popular life. These 
slight erections would soon be engulfed in the waves 
of a shoreless democracy. It would be binding the 
tide with ropes. The remedy must be deeper. Would 
these tendencies be changed by the reimposition of a 
suffrage limitation? You could not impose a money 
or a property qualification. An educational or an in¬ 
telligence qualification would only be considered by 
the people. 

Would the imposition of an intelligence franchise 
affect the general status? A few brief illustrations 
will show beyond cavil that an intelligence franchise, 
outside of the Southern States, where, by reason of the 
large illiterate negro vote, the conditions are abnormal, 
will not affect the general tendency. Let us illustrate 
by the states in this Union which have more than 
others felt the effect of political corruption. Take the 
states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois. 
These have been pivotal states and they have been 
swamped with money, and it is interesting to consider 
the effect of the illiterate vote. The total popu¬ 
lation of New York State at the census of 1890 was 
4,822,392. The number of illiterates was 266,911, or 
5.5 per cent of the whole population. Estimating one 
vote to every four of population, there were, in round 
numbers 1,205,000 voters, and 66,000 illiterate voters. 
Considering one-third of these illiterate voters to be 
venal, which is a large proportion, there would be in 
New York State 22,000 corruptible voters, through il¬ 
literacy, or one and five-sixths per cent of the whole 
voting population which would be reached by the im¬ 
position of the franchise regulation and thus debarred 


— 51 — 


from political life. This leaves the question of the ef¬ 
fect of 22,000 venal voters upon practically a million 
and a quarter of intelligent voters. Would it account 
for the great corruption which is alleged to exist in 
New York State? This proportion does not even hold 
good at this period, for the illiterate vote is rapidly 
decreasing throughout the country. In the period be¬ 
tween 1870 and 1890 the illiteracy in New York State 
decreased from 7.1 per cent to 5.5 per cent. In that 
proportion of decrease the danger of the vote arising 
from illiteracy in New York State would be decreased 
to about one per cent of the whole voting population, 
or, in round numbers, to about 15,000 votes of 
her voting population of about one and one-half 
millions. 

In this regard let us consider New York City. 
There were 38,420 of illiterate males over ten years of 
age in 1890. Of these we will say that there were 
35,000 voters. Allowing one-third of these to be con¬ 
sidered as venal through illiteracy, we will have about 
11,500 dangerous voters through illiteracy in the whole 
population of 1,210,000, or less than one per cent of 
the whole population of the city. 

The population of Pennsylvania in 1890 was 
4,063,134. Its illiterate population was 275,353, or 
6.8 per cent of the whole population. Its voting pop¬ 
ulation was 1,015,000, and the illiterate voting popu¬ 
lation was, in round numbers, 68,000. Allowing one- 
third to be corruptible, can we account for the de¬ 
bauchery of Pennsylvania politics by the presence of 
23,946 who are corruptible through illiteracy out of a 
voting population of over 1,000,000? So with Illi¬ 
nois, with its voting population of 726,918, and its 
illiterate voting population of 38,158. Considering 
12,719 of these to be venal, would that affect the vir- 


— 52 — 


tue of the remaining three-quarters of a million of 
honest voters? Ohio teaches the same lesson in 
almost identical figures. Iowa, with only B.6 per 
cent, illiterates in the whole population, should cer¬ 
tainly not feel the effect of its illiterate vote of a little 
more than four thousand upon its whole voting popu¬ 
lation. 

There are other states where the rate of illiteracy 
is much higher, but what is remarkable is the fact 
that, with possibly two exceptions, in those states the 
corruptible element is smaller than in the states 
where the illiteracy is proportionately much less. 

The lesson of these figures is potent, and shows, 
beyond any question, that the imposition of the intel¬ 
ligence franchise would only reach a very small por¬ 
tion of the vote considered venal, and that the illiter¬ 
ate vote, even if we consider the whole of it venal, 
would have comparatively small effect, moral or oth¬ 
erwise, upon the total voting population. This vote, 
comparatively infinitesimal in numbers and unim¬ 
portant by reason of its ignorance, further loses its 
power for evil, for it has no cohesiveness, and its 
strength is dissipated between the parties. 

More than this, my experience for years has been 
that the man peculiarly susceptible to corruption is 
not the one who cannot read and write. The potent 
elements of corruption are, primarily, the classes 
which provide the means for corruption, and, secondly, 
the agents whom they employ to use them. These 
can always read and write. The mere mechanical 
power to read and write, add and subtract, will surely 
not affect a man’s political honesty, nor will it make 
a revolution in the sentiment of the people. Some 
more potent corrective to corruption is surely needed. 
You must educate the souls and the lives of the 


— 53 — 


people with a higher and better education than that 
imparted by the knowledge of a few elementary books. 
This education must reach their love of country and 
envelop the people with a nobler and grander and 
purer ideal of citizenship. What is needed is an 
education of their citizenship, not a mere education 
of the mind. This is the only education which can 
reach the crisis of to-day. More than this, will not 
the rapidly decreasing illiteracy resulting from our 
system of education soon destroy the necessity for an 
intelligence qualification for the franchise? 

Above these considerations there is a higher and 
more potent objection to the reimposition of the fran¬ 
chise limitation. This objection touches the very heart 
of the nation’s being. It will be turning our lives 
against the advance of modern political science. 
The sovereignty of the whole people is the dominant, 
aggressive and vital principle of to-day throughout 
the world. It has made a democracy of England and 
a Republic of France. Its spirit jostles the soldiers 
in Berlin, and it controls monarchical Europe. It 
shakes the Czar sitting on the only despotic throne in 
civilization. This spirit was born with our Republic, 
and should we be the power to arrest its development 
throughout the nations of the world? Would it not 
fix the attention of civilization upon class as the model 
we give it upon which to rebuild the institutions of gov¬ 
ernment? Shall we bind the hands of this potent spirit 
and say to the people of the world, struggling against 
king and emperor and class and privilege, that the 
fundamental theory of our government is at fault, 
and that the people cannot be entirely trusted? Could 
we, in justice to our theory of government, send this 
message to the world after a hundred years of our 
civilizing free government? Shall we place Chinese 


— 54 — 


shoes on American feet and put the American citizen in 
a Procrustean bed? Would it not be an unhappy lesson 
for free government? Should we not rather take les¬ 
sons from our old mother England? With a limited 
franchise, her elections were corrupt, and her adminis¬ 
trative abuses were enormous. With a gradual change 
in her franchise to an almost universal suffrage, we be¬ 
hold corruption practically abolished and governmental 
abuses almost unknown. Verily, the remedy must 
be deeper. Sir, there must be reform, and it must 
come from the higher classes. It must be a true re¬ 
form of the people, and not in the mere machinery of 
suffrage. The protest against the tendencies of the 
day must begin with you and me, and its action must 
be continuous and not ephemeral. It must not be a 
crusade, but should be a part of our lives. It should 
not express itself by a sermon once a year, illustrated 
by a trip to the slums under the protection of a police¬ 
man ; but the inculcation of high political morals 
should be part and parcel of the everyday work and 
teachings of the church. We must demand that 
those in control of the affairs of commercial influences 
shall keep their hands away from the people, and by 
precept and example sternly enforce that demand. 
The pruning of the political tree must begin at the top 
and not at the root. The danger to the Republic is not 
to-day to be feared from the lower classes. The intelli¬ 
gent and critical classes who are not interested in some 
governmental policy for personal purposes have left 
the practical control of political affairs to the other 
classes of the body politic. This is essentially a politi¬ 
cal nation, and if the intelligent and disinterested citi¬ 
zen does not interest himself in governmental affairs 
either those interested for selfish purposes or the ig¬ 
norant will take control. This government, while a 


— 55 — 


free government, will not run itself. It is founded 
upon the joint exertion of all of its citizenss and not 
alone on the efforts of the corner grocery man and the 
place hunter. The people are guided by intelligence ; 
and the disinterested and intelligent classes in this 
country, if they will but interest themselves in 
political affairs will be the great potential factors 
in our political life. I repeat that the corrective in¬ 
fluence must begin work in its own class and en¬ 
force its demand for pure government. It will 
surely succeed, for the plain people will earnestly re¬ 
spond to the demand of the disinterested and intelli¬ 
gent citizen. This government is founded largely 
upon the plain people. I believe in the plain people 
and they love this government and revere its abiding 
principles. They believe in the permanency of our 
free institutions. They love the Constitution, and 
whilst in moments of haste and passion they may 
wander, yet surely will they return to the vital prin¬ 
ciples of popular government. An honest appeal to 
the patriotism of the people has never yet by them 
been disregarded. The reform of mere political ma¬ 
chinery will not suffice for this critical epoch in our 
governmental affairs. The people must again be 
summoned to their tents, the rich and the poor, the 
learned and the unlearned, abiding together as of old, 
and the Palladium of our faith, which has ever guided 
us in all our wanderings, must be again brought to 
our view. Hear again the law and listen to the real 
hope for the correction of the wrong tendencies of the 
Democracy : 

“Equal and exact justice to all men of whatever 
state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, com¬ 
merce and honest friendship with all nations, en¬ 
tangling alliances with none ; the support of the state 


— 56 — 


governments in all their rights, as the most competent 
administrations of our domestic concerns and the surest 
bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the 
preservation of the General Government in its whole 
constitutional vigor, as a sheet-anchor of our peace 
at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the 
right of election by the people ; a mild and safe cor¬ 
rection of abuses, which are lopped by the sword of 
revolution, when peaceable remedies are unprovided ; 
absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, 
the vital principle of Republics, from which there 
is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and imme¬ 
diate parent of despotism ; a well-disciplined militia, 
our best reliance in peace, and for the first moments 
in war, till regulars can relieve them ; the supremacy 
of the civil over the military authority ; economy in 
the public expense, that labor may be lightly bur¬ 
dened ; the honest payment of our debts, and sacred 
preservation of the public faith ; encouragement of 
agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid ; the 
diffusion of information, and arraignment of all abuses 
at the bar of the public reason ; freedom of religion, 
freedom of the press, freedom of person under the pro¬ 
tection of the Habeas Corpus ; and trial by juries 
impartially selected.” 

Sir, with the earnestness of one who loves the 
Republic, I believe that if we will grasp the people 
more closely to us in the bonds of a common patriotism, 
show them an example of high political morality 
among the intelligent and powerful, place before them 
the ancestral faiths as the texture of our national be¬ 
ing, touch arms and hearts with them as part and 
parcel of the common body politic, public sentiment 
will become more lofty, patriotism will be revived 
and made more holy, and without touching limb 


— 57 — 


or twig of its mighty power, democracy will be dis¬ 
enthralled from the tendencies which disturb the day. 
These alone, Sir, are the mighty agents which will de¬ 
throne the Boss, break the Machine, correct abuses 
and touch again with life the alters of the country 
where deep down in the hearts of the people the fires 
of patriotism are burning clear and true. Will this 
save the Republic? That it will, I again summon as 
witness the mighty spirit of him from whose heart 
and hand were born the words and spirit of our Con¬ 
stitution. “These principles,” says the Father of the 
Constitution, “form the bright constellation that has 
gone before and guided our steps through an age of 
revolution and reformation. They should be the 
creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruc¬ 
tion, the toucli-stone by which to try the services of 
those we trust. And should we wander from them in 
moments of error and alarm, let us hasten to retrace 
our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to 
peace, liberty and safety.” 

The witnesses are about us to-night that these 
words are as true to-day as they were in the spring¬ 
time of the Republic. The splendor of this presence 
of the learned, the great and the powerful, within the 
gates of this imperial city, listening to the words of a 
plain mountain man as he tells of the simple faiths 
of the Republic, fills me with hopes unspeakable for 
the perpetuity of our free government. Aye, sir, I 
can bear the message to the plain people of the coun¬ 
try that here, amidst the silks and spices, the glitter 
and power of incomprehensible wealth, the hurry of 
trade, surrounded by all of the novel concomitants of 
our civilization, still abide the simple faiths of our 
ancestors. 

In my home, on the banks of a sweet Southern 


58 — 


river, under the shadow of the mountains keeping 
their eternal watch and ward over the men who cease¬ 
lessly come and go, in the simple room where I read 
my books, stands a marble pedestal surmounted by a 
broken slab of stone. Traced in its brazen binding 
are the momentous words, “On this stone, at Mont¬ 
gomery, Alabama, February the eighteenth, 1861, 
Jefferson Davis was inaugurated President of the Con¬ 
federate States of America.” By some chance of the 
books, I found on the broken, worn piece of stone the 
life of Abraham Lincoln, and from its white leaves 
there breathed, as the glory of the fruition of a good 
man’s prayer, louder and clearer than the relic freighted 
with the preQious argosy of our tears, these words of 
encouragement to those who hope and believe in the 
immortality of our free institutions: “That govern¬ 
ment of the people, by the people, for the people, 
shall not perish from this earth?” 

And may the Almighty who has glorified the 
Republic and blessed its people in all of the days keep 
ever present to you of the city your faith in these al¬ 
most inspired words, for it is of more permanent 
value to mankind than all the jewels, the gold and 
the silver and the houses within your encircling 
waters. 


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